Tony Seeley Photography

Back to tulips – well I did warn you yesterday.  Tonight’s posting is a great example of what to do when there are hundreds of people all around you and you want a picture of flowers (with no people).  GET IN CLOSE.

Ironically this image was taken with quite a long lens from a distance, but the “get in close” approach is the same.  I liked the fact that not all the flowers had bloomed here and the fact that they aren’t pointing straight up, I also was aiming for a narrow depth of field (for those of you who don’t talk camera – this means that the front of the picture and the back of the picture are out of focus and the middle is sharp – well that’s the idea anyway).

Expect to see more tulips for the next few days, but I have a long weekend coming up and am planning a day out to get some new stellar shots (that you won’t see until Monday) so hang in there.

While walking around the office at work Carter and Master Chief found a load of enslaved “dudes”, they are currently planning their escape.

If you read this blog you will remember that I went back to Mount Vernon on Saturday to finally shoot some tulips.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m going to post LOTS of pictures of tulips.  Having said that I’ll try and intersperse non-tulip images so you don’t get too bored.

You kind of have to imagine a huge field (and I mean huge) full of different colored flowers.  Then imagine hundreds of people walking all around the flowers and periodically running into the flowers for a picture.

Then you have to ask yourself how can you photograph great pictures without loads of strangers in shot?  Well there are a few approaches (and I used them all).  One way is to shoot deep into the field with a long lens, to do this I just stand at the edge and focus way out into the middle of the field.  Another approach is just to have patience and when a small number of people are in view (you never have no people) take the shot, then remove them in post processing.  The last approach (and the mechanism used in today’s picture) is to get a large black bin bag out of your camera case and lay it on the floor.  Then you lay on the bag under the flowers and shoot up.   This is what I did.  Of course there are people walking round my feet looking at me like I’m a loony, but that’s OK, the results are worth it.

One of the benefits of this approach (other than no people) is that you get the blue sky as a background and it can set off the flowers.  In this image I also had the sun, which I tried to hide behind a flower bulb.

Cater and Master Chief decided today to play a game of soccer.  So they jumped on a Foosball table and took over.

Lisa was on the internet last night and visited the facebook site of the tour company that took me to Mount Vernon a couple of weeks ago.  It appeared that the tulips were now out in full bloom and they were posting pictures.  So as I now had proof that the fields were full of color I decided that today I would head back – this time on my own – and get the pictures I wanted.

Initially I thought I’d leave really early and get there as the place opened, but then I remembered that I got up every day this week at 6:30 and it was Saturday and I was totally knackered.  So I convinced myself late last night that I’d either go later in the day or Sunday instead.

So this morning I got up at 10am (how fab is that) made the kids egg and bacon and asked everyone what they were planning on doing today.  Abi had a Girl Scout trip to the movies planned, James was going Skateboarding and Lisa wasn’t doing anything.  I asked them all if they wanted to go to Mount Vernon with me and thankfully they all said “No”.  Now it’s not that I don’t want my family with me, it’s just that when I have a camera in my hand I can become a little, what does Lisa call it?  Oh yeah – BORING.  And they all start to nag me after about 10 shots!  So after breakfast I grabbed the camera and tripod and headed of to Skagit Valley.

It’s only about 70 miles away and it’s pretty much freeway the whole trip, but it still took around 90 minutes.  I went straight to Tulip Town, found a parking place and paid my $5 entrance fee to get in.  It was about now that I remembered why the “get up early and get there as they open” idea was such as good one.  The place was packed!  Literally hundreds of people were there with cameras either stamping over the flowers or walking out into the tulip fields so their partners could take a picture of them surrounded by tulips – you get the idea.

While this was definitely a pain, it didn’t stop me getting some great shots.  I’ve found that if you don’t have patience photography is not the hobby for you.  By taking my time and waiting for people to move, oh and giving the odd person a really nasty stare, I managed to get my pictures.

Today’s posting is of some red tulips which is actually the most popular color – see you learn stuff by coming here too.  The challenge I had here was that they were VERY VERY red, almost too red and dark but they looked fantastic and I wanted to capture that “lost in a sea of red” look.

I took over 380 pictures in all over around 2 hours and then headed home.  Got in with enough time to mow the lawn and post this before going out with Lisa on a date.

Hope you like the first one, there will be more tulips over the coming week (trust me by next week you will be sick of them).

At work we have these really nice coffee machines that grind and brew fresh Starbucks coffee.  But that are quite hard to use when you’re only 4 inches high.  But having found the stationary room Carter get some tape and overcame the challenge.

As you know last week I drove up to Mount Vernon to photograph some tulips, but the fields and fields of tulips I went to see hadn’t come into bloom yet.  What’s interesting is that I found out today that the flowers have all come out, right now it’s beautiful up there!  So I only missed it by 5 days – typical.

However, there were a few tulips starting to come out in gardens in some of the places we visited.  One example is below, I shot these flowers in Roozengaarde.

I think there were around 50 out – how funny is that!  And as you can see they were really just starting to open.  Anyway, I’m going back this weekend to get the pictures I wanted, only this time I’m taking the family with me.  Now this is always a challenge.  Lisa, James and Abi are all OK at first, they know I want to take pictures and for the first 10 minutes everything is fine.  But after that the complaining starts “Why do you take so long”, “you took that one already”, “what are you doing now”, “this is really boring” … you get the idea.

So I have to keep moving so they don’t turn on me.  Trouble is one part of me wants to go on my own and the other part really wants them to go with me.  Who knows I may even take some nice shots of them in the flowers too – we’ll have to see.

I think the Halo dudes where bored at work today, I left my office for 10 minutes and came back to find Carter trying to microwave Master Chief!